What Love Sees

by Susan Vreeland

  “I’ll take care of the horses, Allego.”

  “You haven’t called me that since we were kids.”

  “You go on back. Thanks for the ride.” Dust coated the inside of his mouth.

  The horses walked to the hitching rail. Forrest kept his hand moving over Snort’s neck and head as he reached for the bridle. He felt foam. “Oh yeah, you’ve had a little exercise, haven’t ya? And it’s mighty hot, too.” Forrest spoke softly. He removed the saddles and blankets and slung them over the corral rail to air. One at a time he ran his hands down over the horses’ thighs and hamstrings and felt their hocks and fetlocks. He leaned against their haunches and picked up their hind legs to examine the hooves. He discovered a few stones and picked them out, then went to the front legs.

  He supposed the old man was just trying to take care of someone he loves. Grudgingly, he allowed him that. He led both horses into the barn, up to the feed trough, and fed them oats and molasses. He reached for the curry comb where he kept it on the shelf and gently curried the sweaty hide. Then, with long strokes, he brushed down the neck, withers, back, shoulders and flanks, then the legs, the mane and forelock and tail, loving the feel of the animals, prolonging the task. This time alone with the horses was always precious to Forrest, a time for communication of love by touch. He did his most serious thinking when tending the horses. Over the years much of his own pain had abated in this healing atmosphere. He did all he could for the horses that had performed for him, and then he let them out to the corral and water trough. He went back into the barn and came out with a flake of hay for each one.

  The sun slanted on his face at a low angle, but it was still hot. He stood awhile and then walked back into the coolness of the barn and slumped on a bale of hay. He sat motionless, beaten, until he heard someone come into the darkened barn.

  “You in here, Forrest?”

  It was his oldest sister, Elizabeth, home for a visit. He’d learned much from her while he was growing up. Once he’d told Jean “I went to school to her.” Her very presence soothed him.

  He grunted. His forehead felt tight, drawn into a scowl.

  She came to him slowly. “Forrest, you know you’re going to have to love that man.” The words exploded in his ears even though her voice was soft. “Especially if he’s going to be your father-in-law.”

  “But he doesn’t have the right—”

  “Your willfulness isn’t going to make him change his mind, so you’d better stop being so self-righteous and begin to see him as only loving the same woman you love. Maybe he’s not loving her the way you think he should, but it’s still love.”

  That was a big idea for him to chew on. He remembered he’d said nearly the same words to him on the phone more than a year ago, a big idea to chew on. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even move.

  “Think about it, Forrest. If I were in Jean’s place, Dad might have done the same thing.” Elizabeth touched him on the arm just above the elbow for a moment. A cat meowed. Then he heard her go back to the house.

  He picked out a piece of straw from the bale and bit down on it, but his throat was tight and dry and his mouth tasted sour. He spit it out. He hated to admit she was right. His anger felt better than her calmness. Yet staying angry would be a denial of his private ethic, the affirmation of the power of love. Love had power. He’d seen it before with his own dad. And love could be felt even when it’s not said. He knew his horses felt it when he curried them.

  Idly, he wondered if he could think something kindly about the governor for five minutes solid without any resentment creeping in. He heard the cat meow every once in a while. He decided to try to think kindly about the governor from one meow to another without thinking anything negative about him. Any shred of anger and he had to start again, he told himself. When the cat meowed, Forrest went over in his mind all the good things Mr. Treadway had done for Jean. How he had given her a good education, how he sent her on wonderful trips, how he provided music lessons. He thought how he had lent that neighbor kid money to go to college even after he’d caught him peeking in the window. A lot of good the old man’s generosity did now. Misplaced, it was. And maybe even phoney. Why can’t he be as tolerant with me when I have such good intentions?

  He felt himself heating up again. Each time he started out with new resolve but each time he spoiled it by frustrated bitterness. His stubbornness wouldn’t let him give up. When the cat meowed, he started again. He had no idea how long he sat on the bale of hay wrestling with his resentment. Sedentary, he thought, and chortled. This time he caught himself before he went further. Eventually he did it. He filled the time between two meows with only positive thoughts of this father from the east who thought protection was love. He felt he’d washed himself clean of rebelliousness. He stood up, stretched, and made his way toward the corral to get Victor Mature to help him find the cows. The air was cooler. He thought the sun must be setting low over the mountains to the west. Late again for the cows. That wasn’t kind to them. He shuffled along faster.

  Summer came and the Treadways ate their breakfast on the screened porch outside the dining room. Early morning on the east side of the house was the nicest time of day. A slight breeze brought gooseflesh on Jean’s arms. She heard the leaves brush against each other on the hickory trees in the grove. She heard the cicadas as she had every summer as long as she could remember. She heard the sound of silver on china, and she heard Father put down his newspaper.

  “Well, if we’re going to have a wedding here, we’d better think about putting up an awning on the terrace just in case it rains.”

  Jean froze. Mother didn’t say a word. Neither did Lucy. The sounds of silver on china stopped. Father folded up his paper and walked into the house. Jean pinched her eyes closed. Let me be awake. Let this be real. She didn’t dare say anything until she heard his car leave for work.

  “Did I hear him right? Did you hear him Lucy?”

  No one said anything.

  “Does he mean it?”

  “He wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t mean it,” Mother said.

  “He’s never gone back on anything he ever said that I can remember,” Lucy joined in.

  “What made him change his mind?”

  “I don’t know,” Mother said, “but it doesn’t surprise me. The major things have always had to be his decisions.”

  The reality began to register. It was as though some wall of suspicion had been penetrated, some mental breakthrough had taken place, some prejudice had dissolved.

  “Then why wait any longer. I’ve waited forever. I’ve got to tell Forrest. I’ve got to call him. No, he’s still asleep there. Let’s plan it right now.”

  “Right this minute, Jean? You haven’t finished your breakfast.”

  “So what?”

  Jean stood up quickly. The wrought iron chair caught on a crack in the cement and tipped over backwards. She left it for Lucy to set right. Mother followed her to the sofa and writing table in the living room. They started making lists. An hour later, Jean phoned Forrest.

  “I had a feeling it would happen soon,” he said, his voice sounding older, wiser.

  Once Father had decided, he was absolutely cooperative. He told her she could have any kind of wedding she wanted. Anywhere. In the days that followed, he asked more questions about Forrest, about Ramona, about the ranch. He asked where they would live.

  “Hermit House.”

  “Not suitable. You have to have a separate house, a real house, not a room. Is there anything else on the property?”

  “Yes, Lance and Mary Kay have a big turkey ranch on a hill nearby, but they’re all settled. They built it. But Helen and Don live in a little wooden frame house on the ranch just temporarily.”

  “Temporarily? Until when?”

  “Until they get enough money to buy a business. Then they’ll move.”

  “Fine. Ask them if they want to sell it for cash. The money they make could start them off.”

  Mo
re talk. More letters. Jean sent Forrest a telegram. “Please make arrangements to buy Helen and Don’s house for $6,000. Father is giving it to us as a wedding present.”

  Jean told Icy. She wrote to Dody. She wrote to Sally Anne. She wrote to Elsa. She wrote to Miss Weaver. She told Lorraine. She told Tready. Tready said it was a courageous thing for her parents to do. “Oh, yes, you’re brave, too, Jean, for wanting to live so far from home, but you’re in love. It’s even braver for them. That’s love of the highest kind.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Five days before the wedding, Forrest sat on the edge of his seat. In a few minutes he’d be with Jean. That’s all he could think about. He didn’t know how long a ride it was between Grand Central and Berlin, Connecticut, the stop where Jean, Chiang and Mr. Treadway would meet him. He only knew it was after New Haven. That had been a long stop with lots of people getting on and off.

  He’d have to rely on hearing the stops called out, but he couldn’t understand the conductor because his words slurred together. To Forrest, the voice spoke of a lifetime of trains and stations. All the stops must be the same to the conductor. Some people got off. Others got on. It was the same yesterday. It would be the same tomorrow. No matter how many syllables they had, the names of the towns all sounded similar. To the conductor, nothing hung in the balance.

  To Forrest, everything hung in the balance. If he couldn’t demonstrate to Mr. Treadway that he could get off at the right station, how could that man trust him with his daughter? The governor could still call off the wedding. Each time the train came into a station he leaned forward in his seat in the hope that his own alertness would compensate for the conductor’s boredom. His hands never left his bags, and his palms gripping the handles began to sweat. “Berlin,” he heard, and then the doors into the next compartment opened. There was a loud rumbling and screeching as the train slowed to a stop. His heartbeat quickened. He felt his way off the train and stood on the platform. There was nothing to do but wait for Mr. Treadway to find him among the talking, moving people. “Meriden,” he heard someone say in a snatch of conversation. Meriden? “Meriden? Where am I?” he asked in a loud voice to no one in particular, hoping someone would answer.

  “Meriden,” a voice said on the run.

  Forrest spun around what he thought was 180 degrees and took a few steps. “I need to get back on,” he shouted in a panic above the sound of the train whistle. He felt a hand grab his arm and he stumbled as he was pulled up the steps just before the train began to move.

  He stood in the aisle the rest of the trip, his heart thumping hard, the skin of his neck and hands sticky. He tried to concentrate on listening to everything for a clue in order not to make a another mistake. “Berlin is next,” he heard. He trusted and got off again, stood still and listened.

  “Are you Forrest Holly?” It was a man’s voice he heard.

  He squared his shoulders, raised his head and grinned. “You betcha,” he announced, relieved. “Are you—?”

  “Mr. Treadway.” The voice was businesslike.

  “And I’m here too, Forrest, and so’s Chiang.”

  Forrest set down his bag and reached toward her voice, his hug nervous and halting. Jean could wait. Right now the important thing was to take this man’s measure. “For a while there I thought I might never meet you,” Forrest said and smiled. He held out his hand. Mr. Treadway’s palm was smooth—he’d probably never really worked—though the grasp of the fingers was firm.

  “Some things take a little time,” Mr. Treadway said. His voice had a resonance that conveyed power, but in the first moments of conversation there were a few short silences and a minute stutter, as if this man of money felt uneasy. Christ! He thinks he’s got worries? So this was the man who had kept him waiting, had kept his eagerness, his passion, for Jean at white heat for over a year. Yet in the euphoria of arrival and greeting, Forrest found nothing to criticize.

  After introductions at Hickory Hill Jean took Forrest through the rooms he’d need to learn. She explained where the furniture was, and they walked around it. In the living room he ran his hand lightly over the curves of the two grand pianos. She walked him across the room to the fireplace. “This is where we’ll stand when we take our vows.”

  “The whole cabin in Ramona can fit into half the living room here.” He chuckled. In the library he bumped into the bronze Nathan Hale and nearly knocked him over. Jean took him up the stairs. “The family’s bedrooms are on this floor.”

  “Where’s yours?”

  “In the middle next to Lucy’s,” she said, and squeezed his hand. “When Mort and Bill were kids, they had their room at one end and my parents at the other so they wouldn’t hear the boys teasing each other.” She took him up another flight of stairs. “This is the maids’ floor. Their rooms are down the hall to the right. This big room we call the dormitory. When we were kids we played in it, but when we got older we used it for our friends when they stayed overnight. You’ll have it all to yourself. Be careful. The ceiling is sloped.”

  He raised his hands over his head and followed the ceiling as it sloped lower. “Glad you told me or you’d be marrying a guy trying to grow a horn out of his forehead.” He stumbled into a bed, sat down on it and said, “Can ya come here, Jeanie?”

  “Mmm, no.”

  “I guess we don’t know who’s around, do we? Don’t want to set off the governor.”

  Jean came toward him anyway and brushed against his leg. Quickly he drew her to him and she fell onto his chest as he leaned back. He kissed her deeply on her mouth, pressing her lips apart. The time had been too long. Chiang let out a sound halfway between a whine and a growl. “Oops,” Forrest whispered. “Any way to keep her quiet?”

  “I have an idea.” Jean pulled away, then put Chiang on the harness and took Forrest by the arm. “Come on.”

  “Where’re we going, Jeanie baby?”

  “To the woods beyond the rose garden.”

  In the privacy of the thick stand of hickory trees and with the coolness of the little creek nearby, he let go the pent up passions of months. All the fueling of hope though work, the postponement of desire, the anxiety of getting here, that all vanished in how she felt next to him. Chiang could whine all she wanted, he wasn’t going to let go.

  Until the wedding there was a constant round of parties and luncheons. Forrest met dozens of people. He and Jean were rarely alone. It was the logistics problem all over again, only there was no Hermit House they could go to naturally, without comment, no cool barn for long talks twice a day during milking. The maids were always moving around and might be in a room without talking, so he could never be sure if he was alone with her. He tried to keep his hands to himself, but he didn’t try very hard.

  The night before the wedding the Treadways gave a small party, and by the end of it he had begun to feel comfortable with the tinkle of crystal and the crisp feel of damask. Mort teased him in a brotherly way, saying, “Here, Forrest, have some olives. They’ll make you passionate.” Forrest ate 35 of them.

  When the guests left, Forrest and Jean and Chiang walked up the stairs together. She paused at the landing. As usual, he didn’t know who else was around. Desire pulsed hard in him. His goodnight boomed loudly. He kissed her once and walked up the stairs, his feet landing heavily on each step to announce his departure. Publicly it was an honorable gesture, he thought, but that was all it was, a gesture.

  Upstairs even after he slumped down on the bed he felt as if she were drawing him back down to the floor below. To be this close to her and yet to have her remain inaccessible was maddening. He took off his shoes and considered waiting until the sounds of the house had quieted and then working his way down the corridor to the maids’ stairway. It was at the opposite end of the hall, farthest from where he thought her parents’ room was. He could run his hand along the hallway wall to know where he was. Even though he didn’t know that stairway, he could feel along the handrail and then move quietly past the empty boys’ r
oom, past Lucy’s room to get to Jean. He wasn’t quite sure where her parents’ room was, but he knew it was somewhere past Jean’s. There probably were other doors too, closets and such. If he miscalculated and ended up in a closet, there’d be no harm in that. If he opened a door too soon, it might be Lucy’s. If he missed Jean’s and went too far, he’d end up in her parents’ room. Disaster.

  But if he made it—well. He went through the scene in his mind. He would open the door as quietly as he could. He wouldn’t knock. Too much noise. He wouldn’t say anything, either. He’d just walk in slowly, close the door behind him and reach until he found her. Gently he’d surround her and bend her down with him to the bed. His mind raced until it met one obstacle, the most formidable opponent: Chiang, the one-woman dog trained to protect Jean from all danger. Jean had told him that the relationship of Seeing Eye dog to mistress is indivisible. Chiang probably slept at the foot of her bed, or next to it. But which side? He hadn’t asked enough questions. Stationed somewhere by the bedside, Chiang would be sure to raise a ruckus. Even Chiang’s movement or Jean’s voice quieting her might be heard by Lucy or, worse, the old man.

  Logistics ensured her chastity. Forrest lay back in bed, resigned to wait another night. He was torn between feelings of nobility, and tormented frustration at this most recent difficulty that lack of sight—and Chiang—posed. One thing was for sure. Chiang wouldn’t stop him the next night.

  The next afternoon was warm with the lingering heat of a New England Indian summer. Forrest could hear voices of guests spilling out from the living room below onto the terrace. In the dormitory he was methodical about getting dressed. A rented Prince Albert lay on the bed. His sisters Elizabeth and Mary had arrived and were upstairs to supervise his preparations.

  “This place smells like a perfume factory,” he said. “Did you see the cop downstairs? Mort said there’s a cop down there guarding the second floor landing. Mr. Treadway’s wise to thieves masquerading as guests. Isn’t that enough to—”